CAMINO REAL 3: 5 (2011): 103-125

Regina Marchi received her Ph.D in Communication from the University of California at San Diego. She iscurrently Assistant Professor in the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at Rutgers University, where sheconducts research and teaches about media, culture and politics.

Marchi, R. “U.S. Day of the Dead: Fusing Spanish, Indigenous and U.S. Cultures to Communicate New Messages”.Camino Real. Estudios de las Hispanidades Norteamericanas. Alcalá de Henares: Instituto Franklin - UAH, 3: 5 (2011):103-125. Print.

Recibido: 31/10/2010; 2ª versión: 19/10/2011.

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U.S. Day of the Dead: Fusing Spanish, Indigenous andU.S. Cultures to Communicate New Messages

REGINA MARCHI

ABSTRACT

The largest Hispanic celebration in the U.S., El Día de los Muertos has both

Spanish and Indigenous American roots. Largely unknown in the US prior to the 1970s,

it was adopted by Mexican American artists as an emblematic symbol of the Chicano

Movement. It is now part of the educational curricula of many U.S. schools and

universities and is one of the most popular annual exhibits in art galleries and museums.

Receiving prominent media coverage because of its colorful rituals, the celebration in

its new socio-political context honors the growing demographic of Latinos in the U.S.

and encourages moral reflection on issues of political importance. Many Day of the

Dead activities honor popular Latino icons (i.e. artist Frida Kahlo, labor union organizer

César Chávez, salsa star Celia Cruz) and a significant number draw attention to socio-

political causes of death affecting the Latino community (i.e. gang violence, war, labor

exploitation). Through public altars, art installations, street processions and vigils

commemorating the dead, participants contest the privatization of sadness and

frustration experienced by sectors of U.S. society disproportionately affected by an

unnecessary loss of life. At the same time, the celebration is a unique medium for

teaching about Latino identities and histories. Based on ethnographic observation of

more than 100 Day of the Dead events in the United States over a 10 year period, as

well as interviews with 78 Chicano artists and other participants, this paper will discuss

the emergence of the celebration in the US and the changes in meaning that have

occurred as the festivities have migrated to new geographical and socio-political contexts.

Keywords: Day of the Dead, Chicano Movement, Chicano art, Arte Chicano, Latinos

in the United States, culture and politics, altar-making, ofrendas, invented traditions,

imagined communities, cultural reappropriation.

RESUMEN

La fiesta hispánica más grande de los Estados Unidos, El Día de los Muertos

tiene raíces indígenas y españolas. Básicamente desconocida en los EEUU hasta la

década de los años setenta, la fiesta fue adoptada por artistas México-Americanos como

un símbolo emblemático del movimiento chicano. Ahora forma parte del currículum

educacional de muchas escuelas y universidades norteamericanas y es una de las

exposiciones más populares en museos y galerías de arte. La celebración recibe amplia

cobertura de los medios de comunicación dado a sus rituales coloridos y exóticos. La

celebración en su nuevo contexto político y social hace honor a la creciente presencia

latina en los EEUU y alienta la reflexión moral sobre cuestiones de importancia política.

Muchas actividades del Día de los Muertos están dedicadas a iconos populares latinos

(como por ejemplo Frida Kahlo, el sindicalista César Chávez, la cantante de salsa Celia

Cruz) como también a recalcar causas de muerte y sufrimiento que afectan a la

comunidad Latina (violencia de las pandillas, la guerra, explotación laboral). A través de

la construcción de altares públicos, instalaciones artísticas, marchas, y vigilias honrando

a los difuntos, los participantes enfrentan la privatización de la tristeza y la frustración

experimentada por los sectores de la sociedad americana afectada desproporcionalmente

por la muerte innecesaria. Al mismo tiempo, la celebración es un medio único para

enseñar sobre la historia e identidad latina. Basado en la observación etnográfica de más

de 100 eventos de Día de los Muertos en los EEUU a través de una década, como

también entrevistas a 78 artistas chicanos y otros participantes, esta monografía discute

la llegada de la celebración a los EEUU y los cambios de significado que han ocurrido

al cambiar las festividades su geografía y contexto socio político.

Palabras clave: El Día de los Muertos, El Movimiento Chicano, arte chicano, Latinos

en los EEUU, cultura y política, creación del altar, ofrendas, tradiciones inventadas,

comunidades imaginarias, reapropiación cultural.

*****

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1. INTRODUCTION

Among the oldest and newest immigrants to the United States, people of

Hispanic heritage have greatly influenced U.S. culture since before the territory officially

became a country. It is well know that Spaniards were among the earliest Europeans to

arrive in the Americas, from Christopher Columbus’s crew to Hernando De Soto, Juan

Bautista De Anza1 and many others who explored and charted what is now U.S. territory.

Since then, Spanish speaking peoples from Spain, Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico and

elsewhere have had a major influence on U.S. society, whether in politics,2 architecture,3

art4, music5, or foodways. The term “Hispanic” is a catchall phrase first utilized by the

US census bureau in 1970 to refer to Spanish-speaking peoples with ancestries in Spain

or Latin America living in the United States (and their U.S. descendents). The original

Latin word “Hispanicus” was an adjective referring to “Hispania”, the Roman name for

the Iberian Peninsula, today known as Spain. In the United States, the term “Hispanic”

refers to Spanish speaking regions, peoples and their cultures, and is often used

interchangeably with the term “Latino”, a noun and adjective used to describe a person

of Latin American ancestry living in the U.S. Latino refers to people of Cuban,

Dominican, Puerto Rican, Mexican, Central American, or South American heritage,

regardless of race, and applies to native-born U.S. citizens as well as Latin American

immigrants. The descriptor has gained popularity over the past 20 years and is the

preferred term among those seeking to interrupt the historical privileging of Spanish

over American Indigenous6 cultures that has been an enduring legacy of Spanish

colonialism in the Americas. Reflecting the rising ubiquity of the term “Latino” in

colloquial speech and in popular cultural industries such as music, print media and film,

the U.S. census bureau replaced the “Hispanic” category with “Spanish / Hispanic /

Latino” in 2010.7 This paper will henceforth utilize the term “Latino.”

Latinos have occupied a tenuous position in the U.S. - beloved in small numbers

as entertainers and athletes, eagerly recruited in large numbers as cheap labor, but

simultaneously reviled by the mainstream society and media as representing a “dangerous”

threat (Ramirez-Berg 2002; Santa Ana 2002; Carveth & Alverio 1997). For most of the

first two hundred years of United States’ history, Mexican-Americans in California and

the American Southwest, including those who were native to these regions, experienced

segregated housing, employment and schooling, much as African-Americans in the U.S.

South. Anglo discrimination and violence towards Mexican-Americans, Puerto Ricans

and other Latinos was commonplace. Racist attitudes were reflected in decades of U.S.

news coverage that depicted Latinos as lazier, less intelligent, less moral, and more prone

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to crime than Anglo Americans (Santa Ana 2002; Carveth & Alverio 1997; Friedman

et al 1991; Rodriguez et al. 1997; Wilson & Gutierrez 1985), and the same pattern of

negative representation existed in magazine and television advertising (Hispanic Business

1999; Taylor & Bang: 1997; Wilson, Gutierrez & Chao 2003). In Hollywood films,

Latinos were stereotyped for generations in tropes such as the bandido, the gangbanger,

the over sexualized Latin Lover, the dangerous temptress, or the dim-witted buffoon

(Fregoso 1993; Noriega & López et al.1996; Ramírez-Berg 2002).

Blossoming in the 1970s (with roots going back to the 1930s), the Chicano8

Movement began in California and the American Southwest as a political and cultural

movement that worked on a broad cross section of issues affecting Mexican-American

and other Latinos. These included farm workers’ rights; Native American land rights;

efforts to improve housing and educational opportunities; voting and political rights;

and the proud public celebration of cultural traditions. Among other goals, the

Movement sought to combat historically negative stereotypes of Mexican-Americans

in the U.S. media. Since few Latinos occupied powerful positions in the world of mass

media production at the time, Chicanos created their own alternative media in the form

of public art. In response to decades of political, economic, and social oppression, they

created arte contestatario – art designed to challenge mainstream racist tropes (Gómez-

Peña 1986: 86). Political transformation through collective efforts and spiritually

influenced artistic expression became major themes of the Chicano Movement.

Chicanos engaged in political and cultural media work that included literature,

theater, music, and visual art meant to tell the collective histories of their people.

Neglected and abandoned buildings in Mexican-American neighborhoods became

canvasses for giant public murals that educated onlookers about Aztec legends, Mexican

revolutionary heroes / heroines, and Mexican-American political struggles such as the

grape boycott of the United Farm Workers’ Union. Chicano performance artists and

theater troupes traveled to urban barrios and rural farming towns producing teatro

popular – a street theater tradition common in Latin America – to educate immigrant

laborers about their legal rights in the US. Chicano poets, novelists, musicians and

painters expressed both the beauty and pain of the Mexican-American experience. These

art forms represented the first time that Mexican-American culture was so visibly

celebrated in the U.S. public sphere.9

Emerging at a time of widespread social justice activism by disenfranchised

populations,10 the Chicano Movement was influenced by Black civil rights activism, the

American Indian Movement, the Women’s Liberation Movement, and the Gay and

Lesbian Rights Movement (Lipsitz; 1990, 2001; Romo 2001). Chicano activists

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identified strongly with anti-colonial struggles around the world (e.g. in Puerto Rico,

Cuba, Vietnam and Africa) and proclaimed solidarity with these movements for self-

determination. The Chicano Movement integrated culture, art, and politics for the goal

of building community and creating progressive political change (Gaspar De Alba 1998;

Del Castillo et al. 1991; Ybarra-Frausto 1996).

Since there were no Latino Studies programs in U.S. universities at that time,

many Chicanos (most of whom were born and / or raised in the U.S.) undertook

independent historical research and visited Mexico to gain a better understanding of

Mexico’s cultural traditions. Some dedicated themselves to learning Indigenous

languages, Mayan weaving, Aztec danza or other Indigenous arts. Referred to today as

Neo-Indigenism (a movement to reaffirm and celebrate the contributions and

achievements of Mesoamerican civilization), the collective espousal of Mexico’s

Indigenous past became a dominant theme of Chicano artistic expression. A particularly

strong influence on Chicano art was the pageantry of Mesoamerican sacred rituals,

religious symbols, and spiritual beliefs (Carrasco 1990; González 1972; Romo 2000).

With its stunning aesthetics and vibrant rituals, the celebration of El Día de los Muertos

would become one of the most widely observed annual traditions of the Mexican-

American community.11

2. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DAY OF THE DEAD

In the Indigenous communities of Mexico, Guatemala, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru

and other regions of Latin America, the celebration of Day of the Dead (officially

observed on November 1 and 2) is a fusion of Spanish Catholic All Saints’ Day and All

Souls’ Day activities with pre-Columbian Indigenous rituals for honoring and paying

tribute to the ancestors. Like many Latin Americans and Spaniards, Mexicans routinely

visit cemeteries between October 30 and November 2, to clean and decorate family

graves. They may also attend mass, pray the rosary, participate in religious processions

or prepare a family meal – All Saints’ Day rituals common throughout the Catholic

world. However in Mexico and other Latin American countries with large Indigenous

populations, the celebration is fused with ancestor remembrance traditions and beliefs

that predate the arrival of Spanish missionaries. Nocturnal cemetery vigils are held by

candlelight to await the souls traditionally believed to visit the living at this time of the

year, and elaborate home altars are constructed to honor the dead. These altars have pre-

Columbian roots as harvest offerings or ofrendas for the deceased. The southern regions

of Oaxaca, Michoacán, Puebla, Chiapas, Vera Cruz, and Yucatán (home to Mexico’s

highest concentration of Indigenous peoples), have become internationally known for

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their painstakingly ornate ofrendas. The altars are often laden with pan de muerto (bread

for the dead), salt, grains, fruits, vegetables, legumes, coffee, soda pop, alcoholic beverages,

special dishes (such as tamales or mole), mementos and photos of the departed, candles,

and Catholic iconography (such as crucifixes and images of saints). Tables, shelves, or

crates are used to create multi-leveled altars, often crowned with large arches or frames

(said to be gateways to symbolically welcome the traveling spirits home) overlaid with

marigolds and hanging fruits.

The most prominent symbol of Mexico’s Day of the Dead is the calavera or

“skull” – often made of papier-mâché, clay, wood, plastic, metal, or cut-out tissue paper.

In particular, edible white sugar skulls decorated with colored icing have become

internationally recognized emblems of Mexico (Brandes 1998). Piled on trays by the

dozens in shops and open-air markets, these fanciful treats adorn altars and are

exchanged between family and friends as tokens of affection. While skull imagery was

also popular in Spain and other areas of Europe from the 1400s -1800s (Boase 1972;

Ariés 1981; Kastenbaum 1989; Carmichael & Sayer 1991; Brandes 1998), Mexicans

took skull imagery to new heights, greatly influenced by the satirical skeleton images of

Mexican engraver José Guadalupe Posada (1852-1913). Posada created what has since

become the most universally depicted of all skeletons in Mexico – La Catrina – a female

skeleton foppishly attired in a plumed, wide-brimmed hat, satirizing the pretensions of

the Mexican upper classes and their imitators who preferred the culture of Europe over

the Indigenous foods, dress, and customs of Mexico. Jacques LaFaye notes that the

renowned Spanish painter, Francisco de Goya, had earlier created satirical catrines

(“dandies” or “fops”) in eighteenth-century Spain. Whether Posada was familiar with

Goya’s catrines is unclear, although reproductions of the work of Goya and other

European artists were imported in great numbers into Mexico from the eighteenth-

century onward (LaFaye 131).12 Today, Mexico is renowned for its production of

skeleton-themed marionettes, gigantic puppets, toys, masks, paintings, statues, posters,

mobiles, clothing and more. With humorous expressions that mimic the living and mock

everyday behaviors, these skeletal images are said to remind the living of the brevity of

life and inevitability of death.

3. A CHICANO TRADITION IS BORN

Prior to the 1970s, public approbation of Latino cultures was rare in the realm

of U.S. arts, education, or the mass media. When Hispanic heritage was acknowledged

at all, it was Spanish rather than Indigenous ancestry that was lauded. In both Latin

America and the United States, Eurocentric racism categorized “Indian” heritage as a

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shameful impurity that consigned mixed blooded Mestizos13 and full-blooded Indigenous

peoples – the majority of the Latino population – to inferior socioeconomic status vis-

à-vis more “pure blooded” descendents of Europeans. As a rejection of this mentality

(which over decades had colonized the minds of many Mexican-Americans and Anglo-

American society), Día de los Muertos celebrations and other actions emerging from the

Chicano Movement emphatically embraced the customs and beliefs of working-class

Mestizos and Indigenous peoples.

Before the 1970s, most Mexican-Americans observed November 1 and 2

similarly to other Catholics around the world. These dates were referred to by their

Catholic names: “All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day,” and sugar skulls, pan de muerto,

and the elaborate Indigenous altar-making traditions of southern Mexico were virtually

unknown in the U.S. (Gosnell & Gott 1989; Griffith 1985, 1995; 1997; Marchi 2009).

However, as Chicanos visited southern Mexico and learned about these traditions, they

brought them to the barrios of Los Angeles and San Francisco, where Day of the Dead

altar installations were showcased in art galleries, community centers, schools and, later,

in major museums. In the U.S. context, these altar-making rituals were hybridizations

of Indigenous and Catholic spiritual practices mixed with elements of U.S. popular

culture and politics – three major elements of Mexican-American identity. Day of the

Dead sugar skulls quickly became a ubiquitous expression of Chicano iconography

because of their perceived connection to ancient Aztec skull imagery, as well as their

“shock” value. Chicano artist and educator, Yolanda Garfias Woo, one of the first to teach

about Day of the Dead in U.S. schools, noted that compared with most U.S. holidays,

Day of the Dead “was so far out! It was a shocking kind of thing to be doing. It literally

shocked the non-Latino community. And that’s exactly the emphasis that Chicanos were

looking for. They wanted to make a statement and make it big.”14

An innovative component of Chicano Day of the Dead celebrations was the

inclusion of Aztec danza, a term that refers to a pre-Columbian style of “dancing in

prayer” used as a form of communication with the spirit world. Danza performers

frequently inaugurate U.S. Day of the Dead processions, altar exhibitions, and

community celebrations with modern re-creations of ancient ceremonies, although this

form of dance was previously not done on Day of the Dead in Mexico (Marchi 2009:

46). By combining Aztec ceremonial dancing with the ofrenda tradition in new ways,

Chicanos exercised creative syncretism. They also exercised syncretism by mixing the

personal with the political. Besides honoring deceased family and friends, Chicanos

converted the holiday into a commemoration of the collective “ancestors” of all U.S.

Latinos, creating public altars for beloved Latino actors, singers, writers, artists,

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revolutionaries and other popular culture icons (i.e. Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Che

Guevara) as a way to educate the public about the historic contributions of Latinos to

the United States and the world. Chicanos also utilized the holiday’s focus on

remembrance to criticize dominant power structures by creating altar installations

intended to raise public awareness of the socio-political causes of death affecting Latinos

and other minorities. In so doing, they expanded a tradition originally reserved for family

members into one that also remembered groups of people not personally known to the

altar makers. Chicano altar installations commemorated Mexican-American farm

workers poisoned by pesticides; Latin American migrants who died trying to cross the

U.S.-Mexico border; urban youth victimized by gangs and drugs; factory workers killed

in industrial accidents; victims of U.S. funded wars in Chile, Argentina, El Salvador,

Guatemala, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan; the “death” of the environment; and other

political issues (Marchi 2006; 2009).

The first documented U.S. Day of the Dead activities to occur in art gallery

spaces occurred in 1972, organized separately by artists at Self Help Graphics, in Los

Angeles, and La Galería de la Raza, in San Francisco. Self Help Graphics, a community-

based Latino visual arts center in the predominantly Latino community of East Los

Angeles, hosted a lively Day of the Dead street procession in which people dressed up

as skeletons and walked to a nearby cemetery. Professor of Latino Studies, Sybil Venegas,

notes that none of the Chicanos who helped organize this initial ceremony were

personally familiar with Day of the Dead, but learned about it from the three founders

of Self Help Graphics (Mexican-born and raised artists, Antonio Ibañez and Carlos

Bueno, and Italian-American nun Sister Karen Boccalero). She notes: “While these

artists were initially unfamiliar with El Día de los Muertos, they were undoubtedly

attracted to its potential to generate cultural awareness, ethnic pride, and collective self-

fulfillment for the East Los Angeles community” (Venegas 47). Through the influence

of Ibañez and Bueno, the Self Help Graphics artists were introduced to Mexican calavera

(skull) imagery and Indigenous-style altar making. Within in couple of years, the

celebration had attracted the participation of the larger Chicano artist community, and

a plethora of silkscreen prints, posters, paintings, T-shirts, multi-media compositions,

performances, and other Day of the Dead-inspired expressions soon emanated from

artists throughout the greater Los Angeles area.

Comprised of artists and local residents, the Day of the Dead procession at Self

Help became an annual event. It concluded in Self Help’s gallery, which housed a Day

of the Dead art show and held workshops in sugar skull making and related holiday

crafts. Over time, the Los Angeles Day of the Dead procession grew to include music,

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Aztec danza, giant skeleton puppets, sculptures, banners, stylized Chicano “low rider”

cars, decorated floats, and more. Workshops teaching the public how to make papel

picado, sugar skulls, plaster skeleton masks, and altars became an important part of the

organization’s Day of the Dead festivals. Inspired by Self Help, community centers,

schools, libraries, art galleries, museums, folk art stores, city parks and commercial

districts throughout southern California and the rest of the U.S. later developed annual

Day of the Dead programming.

Simultaneously in the same year, the Chicano art gallery La Galería de la Raza,

located in the heart of San Francisco’s predominantly Latino “Mission” district, held the

city’s first Day of the Dead altar exhibition. Organized by artists René Yáñez and Ralph

Maradiaga, together with other artists including Carmen Lomas Garza and Yolanda

Garfias Woo, the exhibition and related educational activities also evolved into an annual

tradition. In 1981, La Galería organized a small Day of the Dead street procession with

about twenty-five people who walked around the block holding candles and photos of

deceased loved ones. Within a few years, the annual procession burgeoned into a

manifestation of thousands, including Aztec danza groups, colorful banners, curbside

altars, sidewalk chalk art, giant calavera puppets, stilt walkers, portable sculptures, and

Cuban Santería practitioners. Individuals walking in honor of deceased family members

and friends were joined by contingents walking to draw public attention to various socio-

political causes of death, such as U.S. military interventions abroad, gun violence, and

AIDS. The procession today attracts an estimated 20,000 participants, spanning diverse

ages, races, and ethnicities – making it the largest Day of the Dead street procession in

the U.S.

La Galería’s annual Day of the Dead exhibits have ranged from traditional

ofrendas to high-tech video displays to cross-cultural installations done by students and

artists from diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds. From the beginning, the themes and

people being commemorated reflected a broad spectrum between the traditional and

the contemporary, including installations honoring regional Mexican altar-making

traditions, feminist ofrendas, and tributes to Latino artists.15 This small gallery had a

profound influence on the shape of Day of the Dead celebrations in the U.S., both in

encouraging hybrid experimentation with and “mainstreaming” the altar format. Chicana

curator, Tere Romo, notes that the Galería’s most significant contribution to El Día de

los Muertos and to Chicano art history was the new direction in which it took ofrendas.

By blending traditional rituals with modern materials and designs, artist Rene Yáñez, in

particular, transformed the altar format into an “environmental space” and pushed altar

making into the realm of contemporary art, while still remaining respectful of the

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traditional ofrenda as the source of inspiration (Romo 2000: 38). “Altar installations”

(the term used by Chicano artists to describe the ofrendas they create in public spaces)

always contemplate some aspect of death and often utilize mixed media such as sculpture,

oil paints, silkscreen, mobiles, collage, computers, televisions, sound systems, video

footage, or interactive websites. La Galería’s exhibitions ultimately generated citywide

recognition and inspired parallel celebrations elsewhere. As a result of the activities of

these two Latino art galleries, museums and schools throughout the U.S. now organize

Day of the Dead programming each fall.

From Alaska to Iowa to Maine, New Jersey, Florida, and beyond, Day of the

Dead is now one of the most popular multicultural educational activities in U.S. school

grades K-12, providing a creative platform for teaching social studies, history, art, and

language skills. University departments of Anthropology, Latino Studies, Spanish,

Religion, and Art hold Day of the Dead celebrations, including altar exhibits, craft

workshops; performances; and poetry slams (where participants read poems or tell stories

about the departed). Many contemporary U.S. celebrations also include public lectures

about Day of the Dead traditions or metaphysical topics related to death and the spirit

world. They feature film screenings ranging from documentaries such as La Ofrenda:

Days of the Dead (Portillo & Muñoz 1988) and La Muerte Viva, The Day of the Dead: A

Living Tradition (Llamas 1989), to classic Mexican movies with Day of the Dead scenes,

such as Macario (Roberto Gavaldon 1960) and Ánimas Trujano (Ismael Rodriguez 1962),

to films on Mexican folk art such as Pedro Linares: Folk Artist (Bronowski & Grant

1975). In all of these ways, the celebration has been transformed in the US into a multi-

faceted artistic, educational, and social phenomenon. It is now an annual autumn ritual

that US-Americans of many races and ethnicities enjoy, as both Latinos and non-Latinos

create public altars and participate in Day of the Dead installations at art galleries,

schools, and museums.

3. ART IN THE SERVICE OF COMMUNITY-BUILDING

U.S. Day of the Dead installations reflect the hybrid nature of Chicano

spirituality (Romo 2000), incorporating Catholic crucifixes, bibles, religious candles,

rosary beads, and pictures of saints, with pre-Columbian foods and Mayan or Aztec

symbols. Their principal goal is to publicly celebrate Chicano / Mexican / Latino

identities rather than to fulfill religious obligations to the dead. In the U.S., art gallery

and museum exhibits have become key “media” for communicating messages of Latino

cultural affirmation and political struggle – another way in which Chicano Day of the

Dead celebrations differ from those of Spain or Latin America.

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Unlike in many Latin American villages where Day of the Dead customs have

been passed down through generations, most of the U.S. public (both Latino and non-

Latino) were unfamiliar with El Día de los Muertos prior to the 1970s, and needed to be

taught the meanings behind the skull imagery and harvest-themed altar rituals. Some

onlookers feared these “pagan” activities were affiliated with “necrophilia,” and some even

accused organizers of being associated with the “death cult” of Charles Manson (Marchi

2009: 93). So, each year from late September until early November, Chicano artists have

organized educational workshops about the history and meanings of Day of the Dead

traditions, and taught participants how to make Mexican-style paper flowers, sugar

skulls, papier-mâché masks, and altars. Today, such educational programming continues

to be the medium through which most people in the U.S. learn about Day of the Dead.

These are important community-building experiences that draw economically, ethnically,

politically and generationally diverse groups of Mexican-Americans together, connecting

them to each other and to other Latinos, as well as helping to build bridges between

Latinos and non-Latinos.

Throughout the 1980s, 1990s and 2000’s, as the U.S. Latino population became

more ethnically diverse, immigrants from Guatemala, El Salvador, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador,

Colombia and other countries with Spanish and Indigenous Day of the Dead traditions,

began to participate in Chicano celebrations, in many cases, developing pan-Latino

observances. For example, Honduran and Bolivian immigrants have held Day of the

Dead activities featuring their native foods and dances in Cleveland, Ohio;16 Chilean

immigrants have erected Day of the Dead altars in Minneapolis, Minnesota to remember

those who were disappeared during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet;17 and the

Guatemalan community of San Rafael, California, hosted a Day of the Dead kite flying

celebration in a local cemetery.18 Pan-Latino celebrations are not limited to major cities,

which used to be the only spaces where diverse Latino groups lived in close proximity.

Today, globalizing towns in the U.S. “heartland” also hold Day of the Dead celebrations

in places such as Lincoln, Nebraska,19 Cicero, Illinois,20 Logan, Utah,21 Kokomo,

Indiana22 and Winston-Salem, North Carolina.23 Annual Day of the Dead celebrations

in the city where I work, New Brunswick, New Jersey, include ofrendas and performances

by Mixtecs and other Indigenous peoples from the state of Oaxaca, Mexico, together

with Maya Mam immigrants from Guatemala; Puerto Ricans; Cubans, Peruvians,

Chileans; and others who live in New Brunswick and the surrounding towns of New

Jersey.

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4. ART ATTACTS THE MASS MEDIA

In the weeks preceding November 1 and 2, mainstream U.S. newspapers and

magazines now announce Day of the Dead events in their “arts and culture” listings.

Promotional posters are hung in windows of stores, restaurants, social service agencies

and schools, while large banners and billboards are placed in malls, parks, and university

campuses. Each fall, community centers, art galleries, public libraries and museums mail

thousands of postcards to their constituents, announcing the dates of their Day of the

Dead events, while art galleries, universities, folk art stores, and community centers post

schedules of their Day of the Dead activities in their web pages, email lists and

newsletters.

As the largest Latino festivity in the U.S., Day of the Dead brings positive

media attention to Latino culture in a variety of forms. There have been El Día de los

Muertos episodes on primetime US television shows such as PBS’ American Family (2002

season); the popular HBO series, Six Feet Under (2002 season) and Beverley Hill 90210

(2004 season). The John Sayles movie, Silver City (2004), included a Day of the Dead

scene, and the Tim Burton film Corpse Bride (2005) was filled with Day of the Dead

imagery. Nationally distributed travel publications promote Day of the Dead excursions

to New Mexico, Texas, and California, while popular lifestyle magazines such as Better

Homes and Gardens, Ladies Home Journal, Travel and Leisure and Martha Stewart Living

have featured articles on the holiday. As of October 18, 2011, the celebration was the

subject of more than 1,400,000,000 non-profit, personal, and commercial Internet web

sites and other search results geared towards an English-speaking audience. Major news

organizations such as the Associated Press, National Public Radio, U.S. News and World

Reports, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, along with documentary films

and local TV stations, now provide annual coverage of the holiday. For U.S. Latinos, this

coverage has facilitated the development of an “imagined community” or “a community

of sentiment”– a group that begins to imagine and feel things together, coming to see

themselves as people with historical, religious and social commonalities (Anderson 1991;

Appadurai 1996).

Eric Hobsbawm and Terrance Ranger coined the phrase “invented tradition”

to refer to newly created practices of a ritual or symbolic nature “which seek to inculcate

certain values and norms” and which “imply continuity with the past.” In “using old

models for new purposes,” they observe, an implied (but fictitious) continuity with the

past is key to establishing group cohesion and identity (Hobsbawm & Ranger 1-5).

Although the term “invented tradition” often conveys a pejorative tone, connoting a

falsification of history or manipulation from “above,” U.S. Day of the Dead celebrations

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exemplify agency from “below.” Here, traditions are reenacted, not to provide a dominant

group with “the sanction of precedent, social continuity or natural law” (Hobsbawm &

Ranger 2), but to offer a historically marginalized population cultural resources with

which to counter generations of disparagement from the mainstream society. U.S. Day

of the Dead celebrations help counteract a long history of Latinos being marginalized

and excluded from the mass media, museum exhibitions, and academic curricula. They

also help counteract the psychological harm done by decades of racially segregated public

education, where Latino children – largely relegated to substandard schools and non

college-track curricula – were taught misleading histories that portrayed their cultures

as devoid of value.

5. POPULARITY WITH NON-LATINOS

Studies of “Latinidad” should not be confined to analyses of how Latinos create

and fortify cultural ties in response to the dominant Anglo-American society. They must

also examine how phenomena considered Latino enter different cultural spaces and

change the dominant culture (Valdivia 2003). Today, the celebration of Day of the Dead

in the U.S. is not limited to Latinos, but is also enthusiastically embraced by non-Latinos,

who comprise as many as half of the participants at exhibitions and street processions.

People of Asian (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Filipino), Native American,

African-American, Italian, Polish, Irish, Jewish, East Indian and other ethnic and racial

backgrounds now make Day of the Dead ofrendas at public art exhibitions or in their

homes; walk in Day of the Dead street processions; and attend other Day of the Dead

events. The growing popularity of this celebration is an example of the Latinization of

U.S. culture that has occurred over the past 40 years, in the context of the biggest

migration flow from South to North in the history of the continent (Suarez-Orozco

40). The largest minority population in the U.S. today, Latinos are influencing

mainstream America’s vocabulary, culinary tastes, music, dance styles and other cultural

aspects more than ever. The mass media have played important educational and

promotional roles by covering Day of the Dead as an annual autumn activity, but media

coverage alone does not explain the appeal of the celebration for so many non-Latinos.

In a society famed for its rugged individualism, contemporary Americans find

themselves longing for emotionally satisfying community-building experiences to offset

the feelings of isolation that increasingly accompany modern life. Day of the Dead

celebrations help fulfill this longing by providing a public medium through which to

express repressed emotions regarding death. Feelings of gratitude for the opportunity

to process feelings about deceased loved ones are frequently expressed by non-Latino

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attendees of Day of the Dead events. Staff from a half dozen museum shops and folk

art stores visited for this research confirmed the popularity of Day of the Dead among

non-Latinos. Shopkeepers stated that Day of the Dead season is their most profitable

time of year, and that at least half of the clientele buying Day of the Dead items are

non-Latinos. For example, the owners of a San Diego folk art shop that distributes Day

of the Dead merchandise wholesale to retailers across the U.S., noted: “Day of the Dead

is our busiest time of the year […] probably sixty-five percent of our clients are non-

Latinos.”24 Similarly, the owner of a fair trade craft store in San Francisco noted:

“October is our big season. You would be amazed at how many sugar skulls we sell here.

I sell over a thousand. For a small store, that’s a lot. I think that everyone I know, at this

point, is making altars at home now. It’s sort of like decorating the Christmas tree – an

annual ritual.”25

The popularity of Day of the Dead among non-Latinos is not limited to

California or the Southwest. At celebrations I observed from November 2006 through

fall of 2011 in New York City at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian

Museum of the American Indian, and El Museo del Barrio, as well as events observed in

Massachusetts, Maine and New Jersey, many attendees appeared to be non-Latinos. All

of the non-Latino Day of the Dead participants interviewed for this research discussed

what they felt was a dearth of opportunity for honoring the dead in mainstream U.S.

society. A Korean-American from Los Angeles said, “Americans tend to be morbid and

depressed about death, while the Latino culture honors their ancestors and celebrates

their life through their death.”26 An Irish-American from Boston who had recently lost

her father said, “I think it’s a much healthier version of dealing with death and dying.

Making the altar is very healing. It makes a connection with the people who have gone

before us and affirms what they did in life.”27 All of the respondents described a

dichotomy between mainstream U.S. society’s way of relating to death, which they

considered “unfulfilling” or “depressing,” and the personalized, communal rituals of Day

of the Dead, which they called “celebratory,” “supportive,” and “healing.”

The theme of healing was also discussed by Barbara Henry, Chief Curator of

Education at the Oakland Museum of California, where Day of the Dead exhibits have

been held annually since 1994. More than 20,000 people attend the six-week exhibit

annually, making it the best-attended show in the museum’s annual calendar. In fact, the

exhibit is so popular that the museum extends its hours of operation to accommodate

all the families, school groups and others who want to attend. The event receives

enthusiastic feedback in the form of letters, emails, and guest book comments from

visitors, and Henry believes that an important part of the exposition’s popularity is the

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opportunity it provides for people to publicly reflect upon death: “We’ve had a number

of grief counselors and people from the health profession who have come here and used

this exhibit with their clients to help them process death. There was one group of

terminally ill patients. We’ve gotten written comments from many people telling us

about how coming to this exhibit has become an annual tradition for their family.”28

In addition to broadening society’s options for processing death, Chicano Day

of the Dead celebrations have affected U.S. society, particularly the art world, in yet

another way. They have transformed private, family traditions of altar-making (found

throughout Spain and Latin America) that were previously considered the realm of

“superstitious” and “uneducated” people, into a respected contemporary art form.

According to museum curators and artists interviewed for this study, altar-making first

began to appear widely in museums in the context of Day of the Dead exhibits. Today,

altars are considered works of art worthy of year round exhibition, and are created by

U.S. artists of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds.29

6. CHICANO INFLUENCE ON MEXICO AND BEYOND

While today, diverse groups of Latinos participate in Day of the Dead

celebrations, Chicanos were the cultural “midwives” who brought it to life in the U.S.

and continue to be at the forefront of the organizing and educational efforts for the

holiday. Chicanos were initially inspired by Mexican Day of the Dead rituals and

Mexico’s Day of the Dead expressions were later influenced by Chicano renderings of

the holiday. This happened as Mexican artists and tourists visited the U.S. from the

1970s onward and observed Chicano Day of the Dead installations. It also happened as

Chicano artists traveled to Mexico City to give workshops and promote books they had

written about the Day of the Dead. Ironically, while Chicanos were discovering and

popularizing El Día de los Muertos in the U.S., many middle-class Mexicans dismissed

the tradition as something that only rural, uneducated “Indians” would do. Urban elites

who wanted to forge a “modern” (i.e. westernized) Mexico considered Day of the Dead

a mortifying anachronism best left behind. In fact, until the latter twentieth century,

Mexico’s Indigenous peoples were often ridiculed by non-Indigenous Mexicans for

creating Day of the Dead altars (Carmichael & Sayer 119; Beezley 1987), and ofrenda

traditions were waning (Brandes 1988; Nutini 1988). Therefore, the esteem that Chicano

and other U.S. teachers, professors and artists had for the holiday helped elevate it in

the eyes of urban Mexicans and, in particular, among Mexican artists. Amalia Mesa-

Bains, a visual arts professor at the California State University at Monterrey Bay,

explains: “A number of Chicanos began to go back to Mexico and assist in reclaiming

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the tradition there […] In Mexico City and other large cities where there was much

more dominance from the U.S., […] most contemporary Mexican artists were not

interested in those traditions because to them they seemed rather old-fashioned. And,

so we Chicano artists actually valued something that contemporary Mexican artists did

not.30

Mexican artists have noted the influence of Chicano Day of the Dead

celebrations on Mexico. Sculptor Guillermo Pulido, who was born in Guadalajara,

Mexico and moved as an adult to California in the late 1980s, observed the “regeneration”

and “transformation” taking place with Day of the Dead in the U.S. and felt there was a

“recycling of influences back and forth” between the countries (Morrison 362). Curator

Tere Romo states that Chicano Day of the Dead celebrations offered new models and

inspiration for future generations of artists and “forever changed the tradition not only

in the U.S., but in Mexico, as well” (Romo 2000: 31).

7.CONCLUSIONS

The history of this ritual in Latin America for more than 500 years makes it a

point of cultural continuity for many Latinos living as cultural minorities in the U.S.,

connecting them to both their Indigenous and Spanish roots. While increasingly popular,

Day of the Dead is not universally embraced by all U.S. Latinos. There are differing

levels of knowledge about and acceptance of the celebration within communities, and

even within members of the same family. (It is not unusual, for example, to see Chicanos

in their 20s or 30s passionately celebrating Day of the Dead, while their older and more

traditionally Catholic relatives - who do not consider it empowering to embrace

Indigenous customs - observe All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day via exclusively Catholic

rather than Indigenous rituals.) Meanwhile, many non-Latinos in the U.S. have become

enthusiastic about the holiday, illustrating how expressions of Latinidad are impacting

not only the Latino community, but the larger society, as well.

Day of the Dead in the United States illustrates that U.S. culture is not

monolithic but is, instead, an evolving hybrid composite of the traditions and experiences

of the country’s diverse inhabitants. It also illustrates that political communication can

take place in venues not considered “political.” In their interactions for nearly 40 years

with mainstream educational, cultural, and media organizations, the creators of Chicano

Day of the Dead celebrations have shown that when mainstream audiences are exposed

to alternative cultural aesthetics and values, the result can be subversion rather than a

reinforcement of dominant Anglo-European practices and beliefs. Day of the Dead has

helped change mainstream U.S. culture by increasing interest in alternative art formats

and broadening the spectrum of metaphysical reflections and material practices related

to remembering the dead. It has also helped increase the general population’s knowledge

of Latino culture, histories, and political struggles while providing U.S. Latinos with a

source of public validation.

As a result of Chicano Day of the Dead exhibitions, the U.S. now has two

popular autumn celebrations related to “spirits,” and many families, schools, and

community centers celebrate both Halloween and Day of the Dead. Meanwhile, as

Mexican immigrants and Chicano artists move to new parts of North America, Europe

and other areas that previously had little or no Latino presence, Day of the Dead

exhibitions and celebrations are spreading. A review of newspaper databases and Internet

web sites done for this study reveals that in the past decade, Chicano-style Day of the

Dead celebrations have been held in Canada, New Zealand, England, Ireland, Spain,

Italy, Japan, Australia and the Czech Republic. U.S. Day of the Dead celebrations

illustrate the powerful dynamics of global cultural flows and, as it migrates to further

places, this celebration will continue to influence and be influenced by the socio-political

landscapes in which it is observed.

8. METHODOLOGY

This paper emerged from a research project conducted from October 2000

through November 2010 regarding Day of the Dead celebrations in the USA. Research

methodologies included an extensive review of scholarly literature on both European

and Latin American Day of the Dead celebrations and the Chicano Movement in the

United States; archival research of U.S. Day of the Dead exhibit materials at Chicano

art galleries; ethnographic observation of more than 100 U.S. Day of the Dead events;

78 formal, tape recorded interviews with artists and staff at Chicano art galleries and

community centers, and interviews with dozens of non-Latino participants. I attended

Day of the Dead street processions, vigils, exhibits, craft workshops, film screenings,

altar-making ceremonies, poetry readings, and related activities in California, New

Mexico, Arizona, Texas, New York, New Jersey, Maine and Massachusetts. I conducted

broad Internet searches and used Lexis-Nexis, Proquest, Los Angeles Times and other

news databases to retrieve articles and radio and TV transcripts about Day of the Dead

activities occurring in the U.S. and other countries. All interviewees whose names are

cited gave written permission to be quoted by name. For more detailed information

about U.S. Day of the Dead celebrations, please see Marchi 2009.

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NOTES

1 De Soto (1496-1592) led many expeditions throughout the U.S. and was the first European to havecrossed the Mississippi River. De Anza (1736-1788) explored and mapped out much of what is nowCalifornia.

2 Since the first Hispanic, Joseph Marion Hernandez, was elected to U.S. Congress in 1822 as a memberof the Whig party, people of Hispanic heritage have been active in national politics.

3 From the 1500s through the present, Spanish styled architecture has had a major influence on U.S.building styles, from stucco pueblo style buildings in the southwest to Spanish colonial and renaissancestyle buildings in Chicago, New York, Boston, and other major East Coast cities.

4 Iconic public buildings and parks in the U.S. showcase the creations of Hispanic muralists, sculptors,and other artists, from federal buildings such as the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C. to privatecorporations such as Rockefeller Center in New York City.

5 One of the most popular music styles in the world, salsa was born in New York in the 1970s, asCuban son - a fusion of Spanish and African rhythms - was combined with Latin jazz by predominantlyPuerto Rican musicians. Tex-Mex, música norteña, mariachi music, tango, reggaeton and other Latinmusic styles have become quotidian aspects of U.S. culture.

6 In this article, “Indigenous” is used as a noun and adjective referring to the autochthonous peoples ofLatin America, whose ancestors had the earliest human presence there.

7 For many in the U.S., the decision as to whether to utilize the term “Latino” or “Hispanic” is a politicalchoice, meant either to create distance or emphasize cultural ties with Spain.

8 “Chicano/a” is a self-identifying term for Mexican-Americans dedicated to progressive politicalorganizing work.

9 During this time, similar multi-media work was carried out on the East Coast by Puerto Rican artistsresponding to the racism and discrimination Puerto Ricans faced as minorities living withinmainstream U.S. society. Although the Chicano Movement and Boricua Movement were distinctmovements that sprung organically from each community, both were examples of public Latino artserving as a medium for political education and organizing.

10 The 1970s was a period in which many racial minority groups in the U.S. were attempting to learnabout and reclaim their cultural roots – including languages, clothing, art, music, rituals and otherancestral traditions that had been lost in processes of slavery, colonization, reservation systems, andforced assimilation.

11 Comprehensive information on the genesis of the celebration in San Francisco, California, can befound in the doctoral dissertation of theologian Suzanne Morrison (1992), listed in the References.Further historical documentation and curatorial perspective on the Chicano celebration is available inChicanos en Mictlán, a museum catalog written by Tere Romo, et al. (2000).

12 LaFaye notes that while Goya’s characteristic expressions appear in the work of Posada, this doesnot necessarily imply imitation (131).

13 A term used to describe peoples and / or cultures that are the product of racial mixing – usuallyreferring to Latin Americans or U.S. Latinos of mixed European, Indigenous and / or Africanancestries.

14 Personal interview with Yolanda Garfias Woo, San Francisco, California, June 6, 2003.

15According to Romo and Lomas Garza, La Galería’s early Day of the Dead exhibits were instrumentalin popularizing Frida Kahlo, who was virtually unknown in the U.S. in the 1970s (Romo 2000:38;2001:101; personal interview with Carmen Lomas Garza, San Francisco, California, May, 25, 2006).

16 Susan Ruiz Patton, “Day of the Dead Comes to Life,” The Plain Dealer, Nov. 6, 2000: 1B.

17 Maria Elena Baca, “Days of the Dead,” Star Tribune, November 4, 2000, p. 5B.

18 Karen Pierce Gonzalez, “Dias de Muertos ceremony keeps Latinos linked to past,” The San FranciscoChronicle, October 27, 2000: 6.

19 “El Dia de Los Muertos Celebrated October 26 at Sheldon Gallery,” US Fed News wire serviceOctober 15, 2007.

20 “Town President Dominick, Cicero Celebrate Dia de los Muertos, US States News wire November2, 2007.

21 “Learn about, Celebrate Dia de los Muertos,” U.S. Fed News wire, October 8, 2007.

22 See Dia de los Muertos display at Indiana University, Kokomo, U.S. States News wire, November 2,2007.

23 “‘Days of the Dead’ Celebration Focus of Museum Family Day, Exhibit,” U.S. Fed News, October2, 2007.

24 Personal interview with Claudio and Maribel DeLucca, San Diego, California, April 24, 2003.

25 Personal interview with Nancy Chárraga, San Francisco, California, June 5, 2005.

26 Personal communication, Los Angeles, California, May 2, 2001.

27 Personal communication, Boston MA, July 12, 2001.

28 Personal interview with Barbara Henry, Oakland Museum of California, June 3, 2003.

29 Examples: San Diego Public Library’s exhibit, “The Altars Project,” shown from December 12, 2004– January 30, 2005; The San Francisco SomArts Cultural Center’s “Native Tears” altar exhibit shownfrom March 4 – 24, 2004; and the “Sacred Wild” altar exhibit at the Apexart gallery in New York,running from May 25-June 25, 2005.

30 Personal interview with Amalia Mesa-Bains, July 24, 2007.

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